Bai Ji Guan is an albino cultivar with a floral but highly umami profile. Our Bai Ji Guan comes from Zheng Yan (true cliff) terroir.
Bai Ji Guan means white rooster comb. This tea is an albino varietal with thick and stiff leaves resembling a pale rooster comb. It is indeed the rarest of all Ming Cong (famous indigenous varietal of Wu Yi Shan). So few of these tea trees are left in Zheng Yan (true cliff) terroir, and they demand the highest price of all Ming Cong varietals (but terroir is the more dominant factor on pricing).
Bai Ji Guan is savory, umami, like a refreshing chicken soup cooked with fresh herbs and flowers. This tea is nicknamed chicken soup, playing on the meaning, the color of the liquor, and the taste.
" Bai Ji Guan is an ultra-late-budding, albino varietal. It is not ready to be harvested until a week after the primary tea season of Wu Yi Shan. Bai Ji Guan, being an albino cultivar, is reluctant to oxidize and ferment. Yan Cha tea is made with only the leaves, making it one of the latest teas to be harvested each year, with Ban Yan picking time around early to mid-April and Zheng Yan early May. After the teas are sufficiently wilted, they remain on bamboo trays for a few hours before being shaken or tumbled to manage enzyme activity. This step regulates how the water inside the leaves travels outward. The process is repeated every hour, 5-8 times throughout the evening and night until morning. Once the teas are acceptably fermented in the early morning, they are then wok-fried to kill the enzymes in the leaves to stop the fermentation. Fresh out of the wok when the leaves are still hot and soft, they are rolled vigorously to break the surface membranes to bring out more consistent flavors in the tea. The most tedious step in all Chinese tea making is the stem-picking step, which in Yan Cha's case takes place for several months following the rough tea making. It is a step where undesired yellow leaves (old leaves) and stems are picked out by hand. The ""cleaned"" tea is then roasted on very dim charcoal ash for 8–12 hours, 1-3 times depending on the varietal, to make it a finished Yan Cha.
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